Political Wisdom: Is an Obama Bounce-Back Starting?

By WSJ Staff

Here’s a summary of the smartest new political analysis on the Web:by Gerald F. Seib and Sara MurrayHuffingtonpost’s Thomas B. Edsall sees some signs that the mess on Wall Street is starting to work to the benefit of Sen. Barack Obama. “Barack Obama, whose campaign many feared was collapsing in the Democratic presidential tradition of Kerry, Dukakis, and Mondale, has pulled slightly ahead of John McCain in the latest polls, while Republicans watch the boost McCain got from Sarah Palin evanesce,” Edsall writes. “There is no concrete evidence of what is driving the revival of Obama’s strength, but he has been pounding McCain on economic issues, especially hitting McCain’s Monday assertion that ‘the fundamentals of our economy are strong.’” This slight Obama revival is “relieving an epidemic of Democratic anxiety from Beverly Hills and South Central Los Angeles to the Upper West Side and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Recent fears among Democratic activists have been based on a brief spate of polls….Over the past six days, however, Obama appears to be regaining his footing, pulling ahead of McCain in four out of the five most recent surveys…”

If Obama is, in fact, regaining his footing, perhaps he is indeed being helped by what many are now seeing as an uncertain McCain reaction to the meltdown in financial markets. Noam N. Levey and Maeve Reston of the Los Angeles Times note that McCain was against bailing out insurance giant AIG before he came out in favor of it, a “rapid about-face.” That turnaround “followed another quick retreat by the Republican presidential nominee earlier this week when he insisted that ‘the fundamentals of our economy are strong’ even as one brokerage house filed for bankruptcy, another nearly went under and the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 504 points. McCain’s reversals underscored the difficulty he has had in finding the right response to the deteriorating economy, the issue voters say is most important. The reversals also highlight the contradiction between McCain’s oft-repeated campaign message — that the federal government should largely stay out of the economy — and his new promises to help voters whose jobs, houses and retirement accounts are disappearing.”

Politico’s Alexander Burns, though, finds both presidential campaigns “groping” to formulate responses to the AIG bailout. Obama’s initial statement “neither endorsed nor condemned the AIG deal,” Burns writes. And “if Obama’s response sounded hesitant, his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., wasn’t any clearer. During a speech in Maumee, Ohio, Wednesday morning, Biden never mentioned the AIG plan directly but issued a message to Wall Street executives: ‘Let me tell you something, if we’re going to bail you out, if we give you an opportunity, if we give corporations the inside track then you better damn well open your books to us.’ It was an impassioned, crowd-pleasing argument for corporate transparency – and it neglected to acknowledge that just one day earlier, Biden had rejected the idea of an AIG bailout…” Meanwhile, “both Republicans, John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin, also dodged on the AIG bailout. Each expressed dismay at the news, but neither delivered a firm verdict on the wisdom of the decision.”

Meanwhile, one bright spot for McCain: David Freddoso of National Review raises the somewhat startling idea that the Republican ticket actually could carry that national bastion of Democratic strength, the state of New York. Such thoughts need to be taken “with a grain of salt,” Freddoso writes, “but with a new independent poll showing McCain just five points behind Democrat Barack Obama in New York State, the idea is not necessarily as unrealistic as it first sounds.” Democrats’ denial of the nomination to New York’s own Sen. Hillary Clinton hurts Obama, pollsters note, and a Siena poll finds “a pronounced swing among Jewish voters, who typically comprise up to 12 percent of the statewide vote,” toward Obama. “McCain’s favorable/unfavorable ratings have improved substantially since June, whereas Obama’s have slightly worsened…Can McCain play in New York? His allies like to think so, and hope that he will dedicate resources to a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans five-to-three.”

Comments (5 of 95)

Thank you amazing blog, do you have twitter, facebook or something similar where i can follow your blog

Sandro Heckler

11:35 pm September 21, 2008

L. Lou wrote :

Now most people forgot how Hillary was treated. It's all history and nobody cares.
What a cold world !!

1:49 pm September 19, 2008

dc matthews wrote :

we have All allowed the far, far right to take over. make decisons that are good for the few and have Bankrupted America Dollar and Soul
ITS NOT THE FAULT OF DEMS OR GOP WHO both make america great - capitalism humanized w a touch of social care
ITS ALLOWING THIS ELITE GROUP OF OIL AND BIG MONEY TO ASK MIDDLE CLASS and POOR to pay for thier personal gain.
WE are NOT Stronger when we are BANKRUPT shift investment in our people and infrastructure to the few.
we are not better off when privacy and civil rights are cut.
we are looking at THE POSSIBILITY OF ThE LATEST CRASH meaning CHINA BUYING a HUGE CHUNK OF US.

i read upper income puts 2% of their income back in the usa rest goes foreign. contemplate what tax breaks usa should give them. & what they
do for USa v Them

12:23 pm September 19, 2008

LT_1995 wrote :

Obama talks CHANGE. That's the same woods John F Kennedy used in 1960. Deep politics in the US is to hard for any one man to tame. If Obama really wants change he will have to let the American people know who the prople were who killed Kennedy. Now that will be real change. Not to happen so where is the change.

8:07 am September 19, 2008

Mooky wrote :

Anon Interesting, there are less insults about Obama on this blog , however McCain is constantly attacked , typical on sided liberal view, the rest of the world wants Obama so America becomes a weaker nation.

About Capital Journal

Capital Journal is WSJ.com’s unique site for analysis of the political and policy maneuvering in Washington in the era of Barack Obama. It features the Capital Journal columns and occasional other postings by executive Washington editor Gerald F. Seib, and will house Political Wisdom, the Journal’s daily aggregation of the smartest political analysis from around the Internet. Also look for regular columns by Peter Brown of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute and occasional contributions from others.